It is important that this Android ID is unique and related to your website URL, that is why Publish5 will generate your the initial Android ID based on the URL of your website. In most cases, you do not need to change this initial Android ID.

If you would like to modify your Android ID when you first design your App, please be aware of the following restrictions:

All letters should be in lower case

The convention is to use the reverse of your domain names, e.g. com.publish5.android

The first character cannot be a digit, e.g. com.1abc.android will be come "com.oneabc.android" or "com._1abc.android"

Friday, December 7, 2012

You can now create brand new Custom Channels in your Publish5 App! Custom Channels allow you to add static content, like maps, contact info, photos etc. to your App with absolutely minimal effort.

About Us or Contact Us Channel

Complete your App with an About Us channel. Seriously, how can your App go without one? Add short summary of you or your organization, and provide ways for your users to get in touch with you.

Photos/Links Channel

Add photos or links with these two channel types to provide additional content or useful links to your users.

Map Channel

The Map Channel is useful for businesses or organizations interested in showing their physical addresses to users. There will be a Google Map snippet showing your physical address, with which you can also include a short traffic instruction, and your contact email or numbers. When users click on your map snippet, they will be directed to their Map Apps on their mobile devices.

Monday, September 17, 2012

No panic, picking a great icon for your App is easier than it sounds. Ok first things first, what is an App Icon? It is the little image that users click to start your App! For example, four of Google's own Apps icons below:

No no, you don't necessarily have to have draw your own Icon Images! Remember, there's only three rules for a good icon image:

Squarish

Looks good when shrunk to thumb-size

Squarish

Hm, I seemed to have repeated myself, but anyway, Google has an official tool for convert your photos and images into a proper icon. Check out the icon generator at Android Asset Studio - a simple interface to resize and trim your images for your icon needs. Click on either "image" to start creating your icon out of whatever image resource you have in hand:

Or you start creating an icon from a short text:

Also, somewhere on your website or blog or content, there has to be some part of it that represents your App well. We would recommend Screen Capture (by Google). Once installed, it allows you to capture images you like from your blog, twitter or any other contents. Just install the extension on Chrome and you can convert any region of web pages into an image:

That's it! Hope you enjoy creating your very own Icon Image for your very own App. Enjoy!

Nemo, Publish5 Team

Nemo is the in-house designer of the Publish5 team. In his free time, he surfs the Internet for squarish images that can be used as App Icons. Seriously!

So, how exactly do you DIY your very own Android/iOS App? With Publish5, it is seriously simple - all you take is 3 simple steps!

Step 1: Start Publish5 and Design Your App:

The very first step is obvious: get onto Publish5 and start designing your App! No knowledge of coding or designing is required - our HTML5 based Android/iPhone simulator shows you how your App gonna be like the moment you make changes. It comes with a simple tutorial to get you started too!

Step 2: Preview Your App Design

So, you got your App design ready and want to see how it looks on a real mobile device? Save your design and choose to go to preview your App. For Android users, download the Test Client from Google Play (formerly the Android Market) and load it in. For iOS, you will be given a short URL to test your iOS(HTML5) App on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Step 3: Generate Your App!

Think your App is ready for version 1.0? Finalize your design and proceed to generation! We now support cross-platform generation so you can create your App to run on both Android and iOS. Our servers will start processing your App once you have chosen your Publish5 Plan. The gnomes inside our server (and our engineers) will start the process of turning your design into reality. You will receive your App within 7 days and that's it, you got your first DIY App!

There you go, instead of spending thousands of dollars on hiring a freelance developer, you have created your own cross-platform mobile App!

Feel free to send us any feedback via the feedback function inside Publish5.

Nemo, Publish5 Team

Nemo is the in-house designer of the Publish5 team. In his free time, he hides from angry freelance developers who have lost their clients to Publish5.

Friday, February 3, 2012

So you have published your brand new Android App and you got your APK (Android App) file from us... now what?

Get Published!

The recommended action is to publish it on Google Play (Google Android Market). The major advantage of Google Play is that your App can be installed with greatest ease on most Android devices through Google Play via mobile or web, and most importantly it allows you to update your App on users' devices automatically. This will be very handy if you wish to add channels, change designs or simply incorporate new features or bug fixes from us. To publish your App on Google Play, simply go here.

If you wish an alternate distribution channel, GetJar offers a free option.

How do I install my APK file manually?

All APK files are tested on multiple standard Android devices before they are delivered, so you can get safely go straight to publish it without testing - it will work the way you see it in Publish5's simulation or the Publish5 Test Client. However, if you really insist on installing the APK manually on your device, or you wish to ask your readers to do so (not recommended), you will need the following short instructions. Notice that it is more work than installing from Android Market, so that's not a path we would recommend for the common end user:

Step 1: Allow non-Market Apps

In "Settings -> Applications", make sure "Unknown Sources" is on so non-Market Apps are allowed, like this:

That's it! Not too painful, but things would be easier if you App is published via Android Market - Google meant it to be the way of least resistance, and your users will have less excuse not to download your App!

Feel free to send us any feedback via the feedback function inside Publish5.

Nemo, Publish5 Team

Nemo is the in-house designer of the Publish5 team. In his free time, he likes manually installing and uninstalling APK files. No, not really.